Comment on today’s HMRC update for the number of jobs furloughed in Northern Ireland as of 31 March 2021.
Northern Ireland’s unemployment rate has been kept artificially low due to the arrival of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS) last year. The latest HMRC figures released this morning revealed that there were 99,400 jobs on furlough on 31st March 2021. That represented the first dip below 100,000 this year and a fall of 9,200 (-8%) relative to the end of February (108,600). Over two-thirds of these jobs were fully furloughed with the remainder partially furloughed. At the start of July 2020 there were a total of 139,100 jobs on furlough. This fell to a post-lockdown low of 65,100 at the end of September. The extension of the JRS and a return to lockdown saw the number of furloughed employments rise to a lower secondary peak of 117,700 in mid-January 2021.